(Thomas) Indian Warner

Warner, Philip (d. 1689), army officer in Antigua, was born in the Leeward Islands, the third son of Sir Thomas Warner (c.1580–1649), founder of English settlements there, whose family was from Suffolk. His mother, the second wife of Sir Thomas Warner, was Rebecca, daughter of Thomas Paine of Surrey. Warner reached his maturity during a period when island society, comprised largely of impoverished time-expired indentured servants, was crude in the extreme and dangerously exposed to destructive raids by Carib natives from the island of Dominica.

In the disastrous war of 1666–7, in which all of the English Leewards except Nevis were captured and despoiled by the French and their Carib accomplices, he accompanied Deputy Governor Daniel Fitch in an undistinguished and unsuccessful mission to relieve the beleaguered island of Antigua. Thereafter, in 1667, he commanded a regiment of 500 men in successful assaults upon the French settlement at Cayenne and the Dutch fort at Surinam.

After resettlement of the English Leeward colonies Warner returned to planting, taking part in the transition from tobacco to sugar culture. He was a member of the Antigua council and from 1672 to 1675 served as deputy governor of Antigua and commander of the militia, a force numbering 1052 foot soldiers and 100 horse. After a particularly destructive Carib raid in late 1674, he was dispatched by Colonel Stapleton, governor-general of the Leeward Islands, to avenge the English colonists. With 300 men he routed the Caribs of Dominica, killing many, including Indian Warner [see Warner, Thomas (c.1630–1674)], who was widely believed to be his half-brother, a natural son of Sir Thomas Warner and a female Carib slave. The crown was displeased. It considered Indian Warner a useful, if unreliable, ally in the colonial struggle against France and an asset in restraining hostile Caribs.

On a visit to England in 1675 Warner was arrested for Indian Warner's murder and held for months in the Tower. He was tried in a Barbados court and acquitted. Events surrounding the death of Indian Warner remain disputed. Although abundant testimony by colonists affirmed the good character and proper conduct of Warner, he was forbidden to hold further office under the crown. He was elected to the Antigua assembly and became speaker in 1679.

He died on 23 October 1689 of injuries sustained when his horse stumbled and fell on him, and was buried at St Paul's, Antigua. He and his wife, Henrietta (d. 1697), the daughter of Henry Ashton, a former governor of Antigua, had six children, two sons and four daughters.

William A. Green, ‘Warner, Philip (d. 1689)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28764, accessed 29 Aug 2010]

Philip Warner (d. 1689): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28764

Reference: WikiTree Genealogy - SmartCopy: Jan 25 2016, 0:42:32 UTC